We had some discussion about this on irc last night. For those who weren't there, a summary

• It is inconsistent to reject Paar's otherwise good submission for partial similarity to Doom's E1M3, when we already have several far more obvious remakes of id maps.

• The "no remakes" guideline arose during the past two or three years, in response to a continued stream of remade id resources from certain contributors. The three maps in question here were all made well before that.

• Having three ultfreedoom episodes beginning with obvious clones gives the impression to new contributors that cloning the original game is freedoom's mapping theme, when in fact the intention is quite the opposite.

• On the other hand just deleting the maps (bringing back the "single room with exit switch" placeholder map in those slots) seems like a step backwards.

E2M1 should just be ditched entirely. E4M1 needs the start area removed - it probably only needs 5 minutes in a level editor to delete it and move the player start. What's wrong with E3M1?

RjY said:
• Having three ultfreedoom episodes beginning with obvious clones gives the impression to new contributors that cloning the original game is freedoom's mapping theme, when in fact the intention is quite the opposite.

Absolutely. This is the main reason for cutting out levels that do this sort of thing. Personally I'd also like it if we took a serious look at some of the music tracks as well.

RjY said:
• The "no remakes" guideline arose during the past two or three years, in response to a continued stream of remade id resources from certain contributors. The three maps in question here were all made well before that.

We discouraged/avoided/rejected very close remakes from the very beginning, but perhaps that principle disappeared in recent years. See for example the first MAP01 replacement, since replaced.